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Review: The BrickGun Book
Last year, I reviewed LEGO Heavy Weapons from NoStarch Press. A year later, they have followed up their book of realistic looking machine guns with smaller fare with The BrickGun Book, a book teaching how to build realistic looking handguns from LEGO bricks. The author of The BrickGun Book, Jeff Boen, was an IT professional […]
Arduino and LEGO Projects – My Book Is Finally Available!
For the better part of the last year, I have been building, wiring, coding and writing projects for my first book. After all the months put in to the creation of the book, I am proud to say that my first book, Arduino and LEGO Projects is now available from Apress Books!
Review: The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide, 2nd Edition
Years ago I purchased a copy of The Unofficial LEGO User’s Guide by Allan Bedford. I was a big fan of that book when it came out because I was able to learn quite a few building techniques from it and found it to be an indispensable resource when I was trying to teach myself things like how to build a sphere when building The Green Lantern Power Battery. No Starch Press has now come out with a second edition of the book.
The LEGO Micro TARDIS
At SXSW this year, I spent time at the Apress Books booth to promote a book I’ve written but has not yet been released. Since the projects in the book would take too long to build, I brought my LEGO TARDIS to display, but I wanted a new creation that I could build at the table, as well as building some of my video game characters. So for SXSW, I designed the LEGO micro TARDIS.
Review: LEGO Heavy Weapons
From the age of thirteen, Jack Streat has been creating realistic weapons out of LEGO and posting them to the Internet. His YouTube videos have racked up hundreds of thousands of views each and has created a following online. Now, at the age of 17, No Starch Press has released a book on how to create some of his LEGO creations in LEGO Heavy Weapons, where the reader can “build working replicas of four of the world’s most impressive guns.”
Review: The Art of LEGO Mindstorms NXT-G Programming
In the six years since LEGO Mindstorms NXT was released (and four years since NXT 2.0), LEGO has released little beyond the basic kits for building robots. The problem is that the system is so versatile and they have released such limited documentation, which is where books and websites come in. One such book is The Art of LEGO Mindstorms NXT-G Programming by Terry Griffin.
Review: The Cult of LEGO
There have been a few books about LEGO and its adult community, and even a TED Talk about it. The problem with each of them is that they are not written by Adult Fans of LEGO (AFOLs), but by outsiders who are looking in. Some have received praise, but they just come across as exploitive of a community that is not very mainstream. The Cult of LEGO is the first book written by an AFOL for adults.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
In a few decades from now, the world’s fossil fuels have become near extinct, poverty has increased to the point where trailer parks tower higher than they are wide, and people prefer to spend their time living in a virtual online world known as OASIS. When the founder of OASIS dies, it sets off a chain of retro culture in the populace who wish to solve the riddles to win all of OASIS creator James Halliday’s wealth and property in a Willy Wonka-esque adventure. This is the world of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One.
Review: Geek Wisdom
In the book Geek Wisdom – The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture, authors N. K. Jemisin, Genevieve Valentine, Eric San Juan, and Zaki Hasan and editor Stephen H. Segal take a look at quotes from across the realms of books, movies, television programs and video games and applied them to different philosophies that can be related to the different quotes. From Inigo Montoya to Jareth the Goblin King, they takes quotes attributed to the different characters and expound upon them.
Delivering Happiness
At SXSW, I had the chance to pick up a few books by notable social media authors, each talking about different aspects of using social media tools in different ways. One of these books was Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, a book about himself and the rise of Zappos.
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